WASHINGTON-
Weaker-than-expected US sanctions on softwood lumber exports from Canada do little to temper the federal government’s dismay in Ottawa.
International Trade Minister Mary Ng calls the latest taxes “baseless”, “unwarranted” and “unjust”.
The key final rate of 8.59% is significantly lower than the current rate of 17.91%, as well as the 11.64% proposed in a preliminary ruling issued earlier this year.
But Ng says the duties are unjustified at any level and will cause undue hardship for both the Canadian forestry industry and US consumers.
She says Ottawa will challenge the latest finding under the dispute settlement system of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement.
Ng nevertheless leaves the door open for a resolution to the years-long dispute, which some U.S. lawmakers and observers are calling for to help ease record levels of inflation south of the border.
“Canada has always been willing to work with the United States to explore ideas that could enable a return to predictable cross-border trade in softwood lumber,” Ng said in a statement.
“We remain convinced that a negotiated solution to this long-standing trade issue is in the interests of both our countries, and we welcome an open dialogue with the United States to that end.”
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai also said the United States was willing to talk — on one condition.
Tai wants Canada to tackle the provincial stumpage regime that U.S. producers have long complained about and which gives producers north of the border an unfair advantage — the central issue in a decades-long dispute.
Federal officials in Ottawa say Canada would never agree to such a fundamental change in the management of a key Crown resource before the two sides had even met.
“These duties have caused undue hardship to Canadian industry and its workers,” Ng said.
“They also amount to a tax on American consumers, exacerbating housing unaffordability at a time of heightened supply challenges and inflationary pressures.”
Timber-producing provinces set so-called stumpage fees for timber harvested from Crown land — a system that U.S. producers, forced to pay market rates, say amounts to an unfair subsidy.
Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Republican Sen. of South Dakota John Thune are among those who have urged the Biden administration to provide additional tariff relief on imports from Canada.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 4, 2022.